Mustad Grip Pin Hook Review

One of the most confusing aspects for many inshore anglers is figuring out the proper way to rig your lures given that there are so many options to choose from.

This certainly holds true for weighted hooks too, and the fishing results can be very different based on which hook is selected for the given conditions.

So it’s important to know the pros and cons of each one.

This article will show you the pros and cons of the Mustad Grip Pin Hook.

In this article, I show you the proper way to rig your soft plastic lures on the Mustad Grip Pin Hook along with the specific baits that it’s great for and which ones it’s not good for.

Note: We are not affiliated with any fishing product companies. If you’ve used the Mustad Grip Pin Hook, let us know what you thought of it in the comments section. We love to hear your honest feedback on any products we review!

What To Know About Rigging The Mustad Grip Pin Hook

The Mustad Grip Pin Hook is made to be a weighted, weedless hook for soft plastic lures.

However, not every soft plastic lure works well on this hook.

The Mustad Grip Pin Hook has no lock pin, and therefore, you have to slide the head of your soft plastic lures over the weight attached to the hook.

Because of this, many soft plastic materials are not durable enough to handle the weight sliding through their head and tear as you rig it on the Mustad Grip Pin Hook.

This hook is best suited for very durable soft plastic lures such as Z-Man or Slayer Inc. lures.

Knowing this before using the Mustad Grip Pin Hook will save you many soft plastic lures over time.

As I am mostly using the Slam Shady ( can’t wait for 2.0) , I use the Grip Pin or Chin lockz only on the Zmans . The Owner Twist Locks are a pain to rig, and don’t stay on as well.

Reply

Mark West

1 year ago

Just run the hook point through the nose of your fluke and follow it out the head/neck like you would any texas rigged soft plastic .
However, once the hook point has penetrated through the head/neck, back the hook out and then come back through the hole you just made and back out the nose with hook eye until the fluke is centered at the grip pin.
Tie your hook and finish rigging the fluke tail.
It’s definitely a little involved and honestly, I don’t throw flukes on weighted hooks that often, because I feel it hinders the action of the bait.
But, using this method won’t tear your bait to pieces before you can throw it.

If you lubricate the weight with a bit of saliva before pushing it through the bait it will help it slide through with a bit less force and minimize tearing a bit. Actually picked that up watching one of Ca Richardson’s tips…he didn’t point it out in the video or say anything about it but if you watch closely you’ll see him wet his fingers and then wipe the weight just before pushing it through the bait. Details, details, details. 😉

Is it possible, with the softer plastics. to just run the hook through the nose and out the bottom and then back it out. Next, insert the eye from the bottom up and out the nose. Last, run the hook through the body as you normally would and out the top.
Do you think this would help avoid the tearing since the bulk of the eye is much smaller/shorter than the weight?

Yes, that would certainly work and it would decrease the damage of the softer material because it would not have to slide over the weight or the pin.

But it would only be possible to do if the hook was not tied to the leader, so you’d have to cut the hook off and retie every time a bait change is needed.

Also, the softer material will still rip out easily once a fish or two is caught due to the small amount of material that is holding it up relative to the amount of material that the coil-based holders have for supporting the hold.

I’ve been using them on everything from Gulps to Zmans and I like them a lot. You do have to push the hook point through the head of the bait farther to get enough material not to rip so you have to cover the eye of the hook when using Gulps but it’s not a bad trade off. Biggest con for me is that they’re harder to find than the OTL’s.

I’ve been using the Grip Pins since last December. I really like them. They are a challenge on any soft plastics that are made from a brittle material, but work well with most formulations that I’ve tried.